Insidious

New horror from the creative team behind Saw, succeeds in getting under your skin

(15) 102 min

There’s a real art in making a good scary movie. A film that sends shivers down your spine. Insidious gets it just right, well almost. Perhaps not something you’d expect from the writer director team of Leigh Whanell and James Wan who launched Saw on the world.

As with all good ghost stories it starts so innocently as young couple Josh and Renai Lambert (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) move into their new home. Soon after their eldest son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) falls into an unexplained coma. Renai can feel an oppressive presence and is plagued by apparitions, so they move house only for the ghostly visions to return, before they call on the help of paranormal investigators Specs (writer Whanell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) and psychic Elsie (Lin Shaye) where they learn: ‘It's not the house that is haunted. It's your son.’

Insidious really gets under your skin, slowly building with creaking doors and spooky voices overheard on the baby monitor, through half seen faces at windows. Wan makes expert use of the pools of shadow hinting at the horrors contained within. The realism of the suburban family life serving as a perfect contrast to the escalating supernatural events.

The film is an obvious homage to Poltergeist and The Amityville Horror that delivers a solid dose of creeping horror before exploding into a wild ride of demons, phantoms and phantasms. A devilish and delirious funhouse spook show of frights.

General release from Fri 29 Apr.

Insidious International Trailer

Writer director team Leigh Whanell and Wan (who launched Saw on the world) return with a creepy ghost story as a young family (Wilson and Byrne) learn: 'It's not the house that is haunted. It's your son.' An obvious homage to Poltergeist that delivers a solid dose of horror before exploding into a wild ride of demons…